How motherhood transformed Peaches Geldof

“I honestly never thought anything in my life would ever be good,” Peaches Geldof once said, marvelling about her luck at being mother.

For that’s how the 25-year-old daughter of Bob Geldof saw herself: blessed at having been able to create a perfect little family with second husband musician Tom Cohen.

The former wild child threw herself wholeheartedly into caring for their sons Astala and Phaedra, admitting: “I’m obsessed with getting it right. I want to be a good wife, a good mother and a good person.”

Heartbreakingly, her eldest son’s birthday is a matter of weeks away on April 21, and his brother turns one three days later on the 24th – the same day Peaches’ beloved late mother Paula Yates would have been 54.

Their extravangantly exotic names – Peaches joked she wouldn’t be Geldof if she “didn’t stick about the ridiculous names” – belied the very secure, grounded upbringing she was giving them.

Welcoming ! into her home just after Phaedra’s birth it was clear she was a very involved mum – combining this with being the main breadwinner through her writing work.

Being married to their father was important to her after her own parents’ divorce when she was seven left her “rudderless”. In her teenage years, she acted out, partying a little too much and then marrying an American musician in Las Vegas in 2011 before splitting from him six months later.

Then life changed: she moved back to Britain and settled down with her longtime friend Tom.

She told ! her father Bob gave her this advice: “He told us we must never break up; that we must make our child happy, get married and be together forever.”

The young mum advocated a style of caring for her children – known as “attachment parenting”. This meant sleeping close to or with your baby to assist bonding, carrying your baby next to you, breastfeeding and “belief in the language value of your baby’s cry”.

Peaches famously clashed with Katie Hopkins on morning TV about her ideas on motherhood.

In her last interview with Mother & Baby magazine, the columnist said being a mother had broken her in the “best possible way”. The exhaustion meant she sometimes cried with tiredness – but she wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

“Becoming a mother was like becoming me, finally,” she said. “After years of struggling to know myself, feeling lost at sea, rudderless and troubled, having babies through which to correct the multiple mistakes of my own traumatic childhood was beyond healing.”

Peaches went on: “I felt finally anchored in a place, with lives that literally depend on me.”

She ended with this promise: “I am not about to let them down, not for anyone or anything.”